Tuesday with the Stone Turtle Pilots.

The ladies seemed bright eyed this morning and chatting revealed that most slept as well as I did last night. We had minimal rain, breezes, gentle rocking - the recipe for a good night on the yacht.

0730 all swimmers on deck ready for jump in. A few little mechanical adjustments required - Myssie had a blister forming from her fins, and Caroline broke a fin yesterday. So some tweaks and we jumped in. We’d set a course for a timed swim along the south shore headed west for 30 minutes and then back. We set out to swim our plan.

We reached the boulder field and immediately Tara spotted a what I believe was a Geometric Moray eel, Gymnothorax griseus! It seemed busy and a bit frantic, looking for something, probably breakfast. Discuss. Right, heads down, let’s swim! Thirty seconds of swimming and we met a Pacific Green sea turtle, Chelonia mydas. Chomping at algae on a rock, chomp chomp chomp, time for a breath, surface, dive, chomp, chomp, chomp, find another rock, chomp chomp. We watched and giggled and anthropomorphised it, imagining its thoughts about breakfast and about us. We swam on.

Just as we got our groove on, zap. Zap. Zap zap zap zaaaaaaaap. It started as little sea lice stings and soon we could feel small gelatinous orbs between our fingers. The stings were mild but persistent, and definitely unnerving. Timidly, we decided to go another 100 yards or so in the same direction, hoping we would swim out of the smack (that’s a school of jellyfish). We did not, and so we turned back and made for the boat. Of course we had to swim through them in order to get there. Alina and I took the lead and told the ladies to swim tightly behind us - sometimes a lead swimmer can cut a path through things and spare the people in the wake. It seemed to work a little and Alina and I were none the worse for wear!

This bay (Anse Lazio) was the same one we swam yesterday afternoon to the beach with the jungle, and had no zaps. Sea lice (usually larval jellyfish) and jelly events are hard to predict and transient by nature. Jellies are planktors - they float on tides and currents and can be pushed by wind. Most are harmless including these. Sea lice may or may not cause a mild rash that is easily managed with benadryl gel, so sometimes we swim with them, sometimes not, depending on the tolerance level of our guests.

We got back to the stern of the boat, and despite the disruption, our ladies wanted to Swim On. So we made for the Eastern shore to try again. By the time we got to a white sandy beach, we were out of the apparent sting zone! Immediately we encountered a porcupine stingray, Urogymnus asperrimus! A lifer for me, and very interesting as I had just read about them last night! The porcupine stingray is not a proper stingray in that it lacks a true barb on its long tail. Instead it is covered in short, rough spikes all over its surface. That seems like enough protection, no? This one was making a sand ruckus, kicking up the fine white silky sand in search of gastropods and crustaceans for breakfast. I got a little video footage of this guy doing his thing while Gold-spotted trevally jacks, Karang ferblan, circled hoping for scraps.

Continuing along the white shifting sands, Tara began to squeal: she spotted a White-spotted Guitar Fish, Rhynchobatus australiea! It’s a cross between a sand shark and a ray, with a pointed ray head and a shark like tail. I’ve only seen them in an aquarium, and I know that they are in this area so I’ve been desperate to find one! Darn it, I didn’t get to her in time, so I missed it as it swam away into the depths. I’m so glad she saw it though - another SV first!

As we continued, Tara looked down to notice she had two little friends in tow. Two small pilot fish, brilliant yellow with thin brown bands (in the fish world, bands are vertical, stripes are horizontal) were swimming their little tails off trying to “lead” her. These were juvenile Golden Trevally, Gnathanodon speciosus, and vehement and determined. We’ve experienced this phenomenon before in the Caribbean with tiny yellow jacks. There are small species of fish that will swim along, under or just in front of a larger fish, in the hopes of catching a meal. These yellow banded pilot fish are often photographed just in front of the gaping mouths of whale sharks, fellow plankton feeders. Tara often wears patterned swim suits, and I think these little guys may have mistaken her for a spotted eagle ray.

They jumped from person to person, and we each got a laugh as they swim just in front of your goggles. It would be annoying if it wasn’t so damn cute and cool to have a wildlife experience like this. We came to a reef teaming with fish of all kinds - clown surgeons and trevallies, tiny iridescent blue wrasses and chromis. Of course we bumped into another turtle working on breakfast, and when the tiny pilots thought perhaps we had finished our swim, they tried the turtle (abandoned quickly, watch the video clip to the end for a glimpse)!

After an hour we headed back to the boat, the pilots leading the way. I was sad to get out of the water and say goodbye, and I do hope they found another large sea creature to guide. Good guides are hard to find.

I’m so impressed with these ladies. Sea lice is always a bummer and can be a swim killer, but they wanted to swim. They pushed through on the sheer will to swim and SEE this place. And we were rewarded. Such grit! Total enthusiasm.

“Here comes trouble, here comes Texas”. These were the words I heard as our three Houstonians came into where I was blogging mid-day.

Hot eggs to order from Lou Lou, followed by a brief move to check out another spot (too rough) and a calm anchorage for lunch. Quiche - two kinds - and a bean salad accompaniment hit the spot, as did chats and naps until the heat drove the ladies into the water. Zack tossed in a big blue buoy which is like throwing a toy into a playpen of kids. Immediately they began to climb it and roll off of it and all I can hear as I blog is laughter. 

I love to watch grown adults play.

Who knows what our afternoon swim will hold. There will be no holding them back.

____

They were barely out of the water from playtime and it was swim time. Splash in and we were off. Zack joined the swim and we were a tight pack to the bouldered shore. We got to granite and zap zap zap again. Arg! Alina reframed for us - This is what it is to feel alive! Ok! We agree! The ladies, alive and well aware of it, wanted to charge on, so we did. We swam along the shore about 15 minutes being zapped and zapped again and again. We stopped for another breather and almost all of us had had enough. We called it and looked at the distance we had to cover to get back to the boat. We all lined up shoulder to shoulder - once more into the breach! I reminded everyone to look to your left and look to your right while swimming! Know that your neighbor feels what you feel! Know that we are all in this together!

And so in this living line of shared experience, we hauled ass back to the boat. The ladies (and Zack) swam strong, they swam hard. We cut through the stinging waters together and reached the boat, triumphantly, together. It’s the kind of thing we will all remember.

We talked more about this shared experience and over a fantastic dinner of chicken and potatoes with spinach, healthy and delicious. Not a single one of our guests had regrets or disappointments about today's sting-y swims. They all took a positive away from the ocean today.

What more can I ask for as a swim guide? Not much. But somehow I think Seychelles has more to show us in the coming days.

We’ve changed location for tomorrow morning’s swim. We don’t get to know what we will encounter, but the possibilities here seem endless.

Love,

Heather

Goodnight from the Seychelles and our littlest guides! XO